'Immortal' players are spoiling 'Star Wars Battlefront'

Star Wars Battlefront is a game about devastating, enormous battles between spaceships, soldiers and flying space bikes -- and gives you the chance to play as powerful 'hero' players, from Darth Vadar to Han Solo, who can turn the tide of the conflict.

But in the first few hours of its launch, it appears the game also features another type of game-changing 'hero'.

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Immortal or unkillable players have been spotted in the game's early multiplayer battles, who are able to soak up enormous amounts of punishment without penalty, and rack up huge points scores.

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In several multiplayer games on Wednesday evening, while playing Battlefront for review, WIRED saw two instances of players who were essentially immortal. Those players were impervious to all weapons, including melees, and racked up more than 100 kills each across a ten minute round. Both players did have a few deaths listed against their names, suggesting that however they were turned immortal it did not take effect instantly at the start of the game.

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On social media manyother reports of unkillable players on the PS4 and Xbox One version of the game have popped up, including some videos posted to YouTube of the problem. The reports seem to mostly feature battles on the ice moon of Hoth, but other instances have been seen on the game's other stages.

The assumption of deliberate cheating is probably wrong, given the difficulty in achieving that on a console, and could in theory compound the problem because it might lead to players being banned who were not at fault. Players can report in-game cheating to publisher EA through an online form.

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@EA_DICE Any ETA on fixing the cheat/hacks on Battlefront PS4 right now? Immortal players are ruining games.

Early issues relating to Dice's multiplayer titles are not unexpected: the launch of Battlefield 4 saw a string of problems relating to server load. Battlefront was preceded with an extensive beta, as part of a genuine effort to iron out these flaws pre-launch. But with Battlefront heavily promoted across TV, online and print media, and with Thursday's UK launch expected to lead to a surge in server demand later this evening, Dice will want to find a way to fix this problem soon. (It's worth adding that although our review is yet to be published, the game itself is still an extremely evocative and fun shooter that is well worth your time.)